I Love You
by WritingxEqualsxHappiness
Summary: Pastor Jim gave little Dean a coloring book, and baby Sammy a teddy bear. Only a few months after their mom died, the teddy bear is the only place his baby brother can hear that he's loved, so Dean is determined to keep him happy in the only way a five-year-old can manage. Oneshot.


**A/N: I work in retail while I'm in school, and I saw a baby playing with a toy that said "I love you, happy baby!" when she pushed one of the buttons, and I instantly imagined this story. It tugs at my heartstrings a lot, because my idea of John after losing Mary is that he did the best he knew how in taking care of his two very young sons, but he probably closed himself off emotionally in the beginning. As a result, I can only come to the conclusion that little Dean and baby Sammy didn't hear "I love you" very much anymore. So the idea here is that Dean, even though he's five years old in this, still wants someone to say "I love you" to his baby brother, even if it's only coming from a toy. And thus is the start of his role as big brother/parent to Sam.**

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><p><strong>I Love You<strong>

Dean looked up from his coloring book over at Sammy, who was sitting up on the bed they shared at night. He was surrounded by pillows so he wouldn't fall off the side and had his chubby legs on either side of the stuffed bear he was playing with. Every time Sammy squeezed the brown bear's hand, it said, "I love you, happy baby," in a voice that kind of made Dean want to roll his eyes. He'd seen his dad do that a lot, but he couldn't figure out how to do it himself yet. Sammy smiled excitedly every time the bear talked to him, so Dean put up with the annoying voice because it wasn't as annoying as listening to his brother sobbing all the time.

Dad was on the phone again with someone named Bobby. Dean didn't know what a tulpa was, but it sounded like Bobby was telling Dad how to make one disappear. He turned back to the coloring book and finished filling in the tree trunk with his brown crayon. He'd already broken it twice, but the little pieces still worked and it was the only brown crayon he had, anyway. Pastor Jim had a whole box full of crayons, but Dean had to wait until they went back to stay with him again to get a new brown.

Dad hung up the phone and wrote some more in his book before he got up from the bed and started looking through his duffel bag. Dean watched him to see what he would pull out of it; he kept weird things in there. Suddenly he stood up straight so fast that Dean jumped a little. Dad turned on Sammy, who was still smiling and squeezing his bear's paw.

"Where did he get this thing?" Dad asked. He sounded mad. He pulled the bear out of Sammy's hands and his baby brother looked up at him with his eyes wide and his lip pouted before he started to cry.

"Pastor Jim gave it to him," Dean said over Sammy's wails. He tried to reach the bear in Dad's hands, but it was too far out of his reach and he couldn't stand up without holding onto something yet.

"Well, it's damn annoying," Dad said angrily. He dropped the bear into the garbage can and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Dean heard the shower start, and then he quickly jumped out of his chair and fished a pacifier out of Sammy's diaper bag. He tried to put it in his brother's mouth like his mom used to do, but Sammy was crying too hard and kept spitting it out. Dean offered him his little blue blanket instead, and it distracted him enough to quiet his cries.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean told him, patting his head like he saw his mom doing once. His brother looked at him with fat tears in his eyes and his lower lip quivering. He gripped the corner of his blanket with a pudgy fist and sucked on his other hand. His tears left wet streaks down his cheeks and Dean clumsily tried to wipe them away with his small hands. Sammy kept gasping around his fingers from crying so hard, and it made Dean want to cry with him. Instead, he went over to the garbage can in their motel room and pulled the teddy bear out of it. He carefully buried it in Sammy's diaper bag underneath the stack of clean diapers, where his dad wouldn't see it. When they went back to stay with Pastor Jim, Dean would leave the bear there so Sammy could play with it when their dad wasn't around.

"I miss Mommy too, Sammy," Dean whispered when he went back to their bed. He climbed up onto the bed and over the pillow wall to lie down in the center. He held onto the other end of Sammy's blanket and rolled onto his back with his eyes closed. Dean listened to his brother gasping while he calmed down and sucked on his fingers. The sound of the shower running was making him sleepy, and he barely felt Sammy lie down next to him before he was falling into a nap. The next thing he knew, Dad was carrying them both against his shoulders to the car and buckling them into their car seats to go to Pastor Jim's again.

Dean woke up a little more when Dad dropped the diaper bag onto the backseat between him and Sammy. He felt panicked for a minute when he heard Sammy's bear say, "I love you, happy baby," but Dad didn't hear it over the noise of the car starting, so Dean went back to sleep again.

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><p><strong>AN: What did you think?**


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